Who are 'the poor next door'? 5 SLO women shared experiences with poverty in 1970

Sep. 5--One of the ways a president exercises power is to set the national conversation.

President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty in his Jan. 8, 1964, State of the Union address.

Johnson grew up poor in the Texas hill country.

In 1964, he campaigned for the U.S. presidency and won on a platform of expanding the social safety net including expanded Social Security benefits for retirees, widows, the disabled and college-aged students. Food stamps were made permanent and support for schools was included, among other programs.

Unfortunately, Johnson also expanded American involvement in the Vietnam War at about the same time. And he was unable to fully realize his domestic goals.

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While the War on Poverty was not won, a Columbia University study showed that poverty rates went down from 1967 to 2012 because of those efforts.

The momentum that Johnson started continued into the Richard Nixon presidential era. In early 1970, the Telegram-Tribune carried a series of stories by Bob Bodenhamer with the overline "The poor next door."

Those articles were part of coverage documenting new public housing construction and highlighted the stories of people getting assistance from the Housing Authority of the City of San Luis Obispo.

Four of the people showcased were retired widows and one was a single mom getting a nursing degree.

They belonged to demographics that get little attention in the news and entertainment worlds, both then and now.

But though the women didn't live lives of wealth and glamour, they took care of children, grandchildren and were active in their churches.

Lupe Cota took care of her grandchildren while her daughter worked.

"I think I like to be poor," Mrs. Cota told the Telegram-Tribune with a shrug and a a laugh -- a powerful laugh that kept exploding throughout her conversation.

Cota, 74, ran the Arizona Cafe in town for 15 years and pierced ears with needle and thread for many of the girls in town.

She had worked as a bookbinder earlier in life and said, "Often I'll go by the newspaper just to smell the ink and hear those presses rolling."

Mary Hernandez was twice widowed and had moved to San Luis Obispo because breathing problems and increasing smog in the Riverside County town of Beaumont.

Her income was $98 a month from Social Security and small pensions from welfare and California. Then her rent was raised $10 to $80 a month.

The Housing Authority cut her monthly rent to $60.

She grew up on a small Santa Clara farm where she had to hand pump water for corn before she went to school.

"We worked hard. That's why I never learned to dance."

Marguerite Scales, 80, was "too rich to get food stamps" since an insurance policy was counted as income.

"Can you imagine how they do things? They count my insurance, and I don't even get it 'til I'm dead. I don't even get it then. It's made out to my sister."

She quit smoking five years earlier, kicking the habit after 50 years because they were too expensive.

Dianne Anderson, 26, wanted to earn a degree as a registered nurse to help secure a better future for her and her daughter, 7-month-old Lhia Yolanda.

"If a patient has a heart attack or something, an aide or an LVN (licensed vocational nurse) can't do anything. She has to call the head nurse."

"I want to be there and do these things. Education is the only way."

Before she got help from the Housing Authority, it was common to "starve a little to make sure the baby got enough. We'd stretch spaghetti out three or four days in a row."

The important thing was getting the RN degree.

Anderson said, "Three more years and I can see some future."

Veronica Croak, 75, had retired less than a year earlier under doctor's orders, from her career as a housekeeper for an apartment complex.

The Telegram-Tribune reporter described her house as "dollhouse neat."

She turned down an invitation from her daughter to move in. She wanted independence: "I don't try to force myself on people like that."

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